Tuesday, May 24, 2016

The Importance of Noise

Writing about colonization in action can be a
hysterical albeit terrifying experience. It is something that has consumed my
work as an activist and a scholar for more than a decade. It reminds me of a Dilbert comic from long ago, where the
pointy haired boss tells a worker that the collar he is putting on him comes
with an electric shock which will buzz him if he leaves the area of his
“office” or a circle drawn on the carpet. Later in the week the worker is still
there and we learn that he has been taught to beg for food.

Seeing colonization in action is paying
attention to those invisible walls that keep the co-worker in his place, and
trying to get others to adjust their eyes just long enough to see that nothing,
to very little is probably there. Colonization can involve very clear forms of
force, violence and oppression, but it leaves intangible, sometimes barely
perceptible marks that persist even if the colonizer is no longer directly
oppressing anymore.

It is the experience of bumping into things
you know do not exist, but so many others seem to accept as a truth beyond
truth, un minagahet mas ki minagahet.
Finding the end limit of the person who is resigned to sit on the floor,
trapped by something that may or may not trap them. It is being forced to
confront something that this person takes as so incredibly concrete and real
that whether it exists or not, whether it has effects or not, it will contain
and confine that person within that designated zone.Take for instance, the way in which military
increases are discussed on Guam and by Chamorros in particular. I recently
finished the first draft of an article, that tried to analyze the support that
Chamorros express for US military increases to their island, even if those increases
may represent possible significant harm to their environment and community. In
most discussions on the US military’s presence on Guam and the possibilities
for increased presence, Chamorros break down into these three basic positions:

Taotao Unu: The military is good!Taotao Dos: The military is great!Taotao Tres: The military is gof maolek!

A fourth position has definitely been
developing and gaining more presence in civil society in the past two decades,
but still lags far behind in terms of having real traction in the way that
people articulate their identities and ideologies. The fourth position, which
you could refer to as the critical or at least resistant position is the most
maligned one.

Recall the heyday of Nasion Chamoru and their protest and
direct action campaigns. For years, their protests about land rights,
decolonization and so on were interpreted through tiresome na’osun na cliches about anti-Americanism
and radicalism, and reducing their critiques to nothing by “noise.” In this
context Nasion Chamoru, We Are
Guahan or and Our Islands Are Sacred only shout and complain, and cause
problems for everyone else, without offering any solutions. The problem with
this position is first, that “noise” can be important, as it represents
discourse that is still wild and errant, because the hegemonic ideological
points make it mean nothing or make it sound incomprehensible, even when it is
not. Most protests sound like “noise” until they are pushed to the point where
they change those coordinates and shift what becomes commonsensical and what
becomes the new point from which people draw their identities. Second, that
which makes those critiques sound like nothing more than noise, also has the
limitation of making it so that the alternatives that those bearing noise
provide, are often missed or ignored, because of the assumption that a noisy
person can’t offer much in the way of concrete plans, even if their noise
consists of them providing concrete alternatives.

For years I argued with Chamorros and non-Chamorros
about this issue of the value of noise. I recall a while back when I Nasion Chamoru and The Colonized
Chamoru Coalition released a list of recommendations for economic alternatives
to increases in the US military presence. These lists were published in both The Marianas Variety and the PDN.

But this type of intervention would be
meaningless for most, because the point of that statement that they provide no
solutions, is that it doesn’t expect any solutions and will be in reality,
impervious to any such evidence. Why? Here’s where we see colonization in
action, where the end limit, those invisible walls, become firmly and rigidly
concrete. Trapping the speaker within them, but also preventing us from just
ignoring them or going around them. The statement is made as such with the
presupposition that because of what Nasion
Chamoru is and what it stands for, and the way it is publicly
perceived, no matter what is recommends it will always be just noise.

Even if it published a book, “how to fix Guam’s
economy in 12 easy steps” which sold a billion copies, unless that book paid
the necessary homage to the pathological and infinite indebtedness to the
United States and recognized and appreciated the endless dependency of Guam on
the US (for the economic, historical, social, military, you name it, it belongs
in these parentheses) it would be dismissed as noise. The way diverse,
supposedly undifferentiated speech gains the marker of rationality or being
“not noise” is by being filtered through and being marked as compatible with a
number of very basic and fundamental ideas on Guam. Much like in the Untied
States, entrance into the intelligibility of the mainstream depends upon for
example, an agreement that although we may disagree on certain issues, the troops
always have our support. This exists in Guam, but more specifically we find
that entrance of voice to the mainstream depends upon admitting to and
accepting the basic dependency of Guam on the US military and Federal
Government. Any suggestions or voices which try to avoid this, counter it or
work through it or around it, are dismissed as “noise.”

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Put Guahu / About Me

This blog is dedicated to Chamorro issues, the use and revitalization of the Chamoru language and the decolonization of Guam. This blog also aims to inform people around the world about the history, culture and language and struggles of the Chamorro people, who are the indigenous islanders of Guam, Saipan, Tinian, Luta and Pagan in the Mariana Islands. Pues Haggannaihon ha', ya taitai na'ya, ya Si Yu'us Ma'ase para i finatto-mu.

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The Revolution Will Not Be Haolified

THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE HAOLIFIEDTinige’ as Guahu - 2003 (updated 2008)

You will not be able to ignore it che’lu * This time you will not be able to blame it all on Anghet * You will not be able to change channels * And watch Fear Factor, Rev TV of Salamat Po Guam because * The Revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be televised, nor will it be advertised * It will not be sponsored by the Good Guys at Moylan’s or the better guys at AK. * It will not be something easily explained by radio callers * Whether they be Positively Local, Definitively Settler, or Surprisingly Coconut * It will not be cornered by the Calvos and explained by Sabrina Salas * Matanane * After the story about the incoming B-52’s or 1000’s of Marines careening towards to Guam, and how we * should be economically energized and not terrorized. * Jon Anderson will have no TT anecdotes about it * and Chris Barnett won’t malafunkshun it because the revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be televised or editorialized * It will not be something canabilized with two inches here two inches there * Dubious headlines everywhere * Lee Weber will not edit it * Joe Murphy will not put it in his pipe and smoke it * Nor dream about it, or tell others the wonders and blunders of it. * There will be no letters to the editor quoting scriptures or denying its constitutionality * And there will be no American flag inserts saying these three colors just don’t run * As the revolution will not be editorialized

The revolution will not be televised or politicized * It will not play the same old gayu games * And promise you that same old talonan things. * The revolution will not wave at you as you drive by on Marine Drive * And seduce you with its hardworking eyes. * It will not be territorial or popular, and not encourage you with maolek blue. * The revolution will not put marang salaman po after its speeches to get more Filipino votes in the next election because the revolution will not be politicized

The revolution will not be televised, not be theorized * It will not be something GCC or UOG friendly. * There will be no books at Bestseller offering to help you lose something in 90 days * Or Rachel Ray helping you cook the revolution of your way. * Ron McNinch will not survey it * and will not poll people about their revolution of choice. * There will be no WASC review report demanding accountability demanding autonomy * And no beachcombing carpetbaggers will proclaim their own terminal authority * Over the histories, the laws, the thinking of those for whom they see nothing but corrupt and corrupting inferiority * The revolution will not be colonized

The revolution will not be televised, not be supersized. * The revolution will not be something you can buy at Ross, or get at blue light cost * It is not just red rice, kelaguan uhang, or popcorn with Tobacco sauce. * It doesn’t come with Coke and it doesn’t fit on a fiesta plate. * The revolution will not make you gof sinexy, cure your jafjaf, or make fragrant your fa’fa’ * The revolution will not force you to be where America’s empire begins * Or where Japan’s golf courses and Gerry Yingling’s credit card debt ends. * You won’t need a credit card, or be charged for the tin foil to cover your balutan * As the revolution will not be economized

The revolution will not be televised, blownback or militarized * There will be no more physical ordnance buried in people’s lands * And no more patrionizing propaganda buried in people’s minds * The revolution will not get you cheaper cases of chicken or increased commissary privileges. * It will not make freedomless flags feel more comfortable in your hands * Or make uniforms fit more snugly around your mind. * The revolution will not deny racism or exploitation * And not create histories about landfalls of destiny * But instead publicize the racism and evils of American hegemony. * The revolution will not be subsidized by construction contracts or the race of Senator Inouye or Congressman Burton * It will not be laid waste to by daisy cut budgets or Medicare spending limits * Instead it will be sustained by deep memories that refuse to die * The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be televised and will not polarize based on blood or color * It will not make your skin lighter * It will not make your skin darker * It will not test your blood the way Hitler or Uncle Sam would of done * It will not hate some and love others based on their time of naturalization * Or incept date of their compacts of free association. * But the revolution will help some find comfort, find strength, find power * In their connections to the land and to each other * Allow some to discover the sovereignty that can be found in solidarity * The revolution will take and remake this consciousness that doesn’t need to be televised * But does need to be revolutionized * The revolution will not be haolified * The revolution will not be haolified